


Hannibal Fic Prompts From Tumblr

by gleamingandwholeanddeadly (something_safe)



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Abigail - Freeform, Claustrophobia, Crack Fic, Curtain Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlets, Fix It Fic, Gory Violence, Halloween, Hannigram - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder Husbands, Pining, Post TWOTL, Some Crack, Spacedogs, Tumblr fics, What if Hannibal lecter got some fucking chill, a rude crow, angst but no death, contains murder scenes, domestic murder husbands, fic prompts, halloween fic, hannibal in shark mode, hannibal talks to mischa in his mind palace, kidnap, lots of very tender Hannibal and Will stuff, murder husbands doing murdering together, murder husbands shenanigans, rarepairs, some might be continued and some might not, straitjackets, these are just things I'll add to here and there, will participating in murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-01-09 18:13:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12281829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/something_safe/pseuds/gleamingandwholeanddeadly
Summary: Short fics based on Hannibal-centric prompts, ranging from first kisses and 'I love you's to Hannigram au rarepairs.





	1. Touch

This is for the prompt:

_"Hannibal and Will finally telling each other "I love you" and with first kisses please and thank you!"_

*

_I set this post TWOTL, I suppose it p much fits with the general universe I usually write these two in. :3_

/

Will finds himself in a warm, downy bed with an ice pack covering one eye and his cheek. His head hums with the promise of pain, but he doesn’t feel it, still swaying in the arms of sleepy, sweet morphine dreams.

He turns his head with some difficulty, searching, over cream wallpaper and Ikea art and the same navy comforters he’s come across in every motel he’s ever stayed in. Finally, his eyes find Hannibal, lay in his own bed, papery eyelids closed and one hand resting on his chest. He’s so still for a second that Will wonders if he’s dead.

“Just sleeping,” says a voice, familiar and foreign all at once. Will looks and sees Chiyoh, her dark eyes measuring, shrewd. She cocks her head. “He lost a lot of blood, but the bullet missed anything major. He’s on antibiotics for the infection, and I’ve sutured the worst of it. All he can do now is rest.”

When he opens his mouth, his head fills up with hot agony and his mouth with blood. He closes it again, and Chiyoh tuts.

“You will be okay too, but your leg is broken. Must have hit the rocks.”

His bones feel like a sack of gravel inside his skin. He grimaces. How bad?

“Two fractures, you’re lucky it’s not worse, you know. Both of you.”

Will does know. Her face swims in and out of focus, and he finds he doesn’t want to waste any more precious wakefulness on it when he could be looking at Hannibal. His ears ring when he turns his neck. He strains anyway, starting to sit up.

“Don’t,” Chiyoh says, but she doesn’t hold him back. When it becomes evident he will be ignoring her advice, she huffs and goes to support him as he levers himself out of bed. “You deserve each other. When he woke, he did the same thing, but he couldn’t move.”

Will hears a grunt that must be from him, but even the vibration of his voice feels painful. Tremblingly, he falls across the metre-wide gap between the musty hotel beds, crawling onto the edge of the mattress. Chiyoh lifts the covers for him, and drops them back down when he’s scrabbled against Hannibal’s side, his good shoulder taking his weight. Will hears her speak, but he can’t make out the words, just covering Hannibal’s wrist with his fingers to feel the pulse there until he falls asleep. His nose finds his shoulder all too easily, the scent of him reassuring, his pulse echoing the crash of the waves in Will’s mind.

 *

 He’s not sure how many days they spend in the hotel. All he knows is that he wakes up in the perpetual twilight of their room one day and feels clearer. He keeps his face buried in Hannibal’s shoulder for a long time, slowly building himself up to confronting it all- Hannibal, Chiyoh, and himself in the mirror.

Hannibal’s arm, he realises, is curled under his neck, fingers on his arm to avoid his wounded shoulder, frightfully intimate.  Will thinks of all the touches they’ve shared over the years, kisses of skin and steel, and realises he’s never felt so intertwined with anyone from brushes of lashes and fingertips alone.

It had never occurred to him Hannibal could love, until it became the only thing that made sense. He thinks of Hannibal’s barbed, broken mind, and wonders if it had occurred to him, either.

He feels Hannibal’s chest rise against his cheek, and he stirs. Will keeps his eyes closed, almost afraid to invade his privacy; to be pushed away. He feels Hannibal look over him, and the fingers on his arm briefly tighten.

“Will.” His voice is hoarse from disuse. When Will looks up, though, Hannibal’s eyes are bright and clear. He looks exhausted, and ill, but his face is full of reverent disbelief. For a moment, Will feels himself falling again, that maroon gaze boring into his eyes.

Without even trying to speak this time, Will lets his fingers slip down between Hannibal’s and gently squeezes.

“Your face,” Hannibal murmurs, “is it ruined?”

Without pointing out that Hannibal literally tried to take a bonesaw to his face once, Will tilts his chin and silently allows him to peel up the ice pack (cold again, Chiyoh must be nearby) and the bandages underneath. He tuts, sympathetic, and Will opens his mouth with the questioning press of his finger, swallowing reflexively against Hannibal’s gentle, explorative search.

“You’ve lost a number of teeth,” he tells him, simply, “and some of the jaw. Without surgery it will stay quite sunken. Also, we need to wash your mouth out with some salt water, for the sake of your remaining teeth if nothing else.”

Will resists smiling, but he wants to. He squeezes Hannibal’s hand again instead, feeling fragile and small and so, so broken. Like he’s thinking the same thing, Hannibal sighs, tucking his cheek on top of Will’s head when he’s pressed the dressings back into place.

“We can’t stay here too much longer,” Hannibal murmurs, “they’ll be looking for us.”

Will feels wretchedly tired at the thought. It settles on him like a lead blanket, making him sigh. That gives Hannibal pause, and he squeezes at Will again gently.

“I will protect you. It’s us against them now. I will show them we cannot be caged.”

 *

 When they stop travelling, finally, Will is so intensely fatigued that he feels himself swaying in the doorway of the sunlit house, watching himself following Hannibal’s shuffling footsteps. He stops when he realises Will isn’t following, and doubles back for him, every step a visible struggle.

“Come with me,” he murmurs. After a long, long wait, Will reaches out and takes his outstretched hand, letting himself be led up the stairs.

Hannibal turns on the water in a clean, modern shower, starting to take off his shoes and socks with careful, restrained motions. Will sits down on the toilet lid to take off his own, moving on autopilot. He’s so out of it he doesn’t notice Hannibal kneeling down in front of him, until he’s gently pushing Will’s hands out of the way, unlacing his boots and then stretching up on his knees to gently shrug Will out of his jacket.

Finally, they help one another stand, stepping out of trousers and underwear with little thought for modesty- prison soon rid either of them of that. By now, the bathroom is filling with steam, making everything dozy and warm. Taking his hand, Hannibal helps Will step gingerly into the shower, before lowering him down to sit against the wall, half under the spray. He closes the door and settles down beside him, and they both just savour the hot, clean water for a few minutes, marvelling at the way the dirt and blood runs off them in streaks.

Thoughts muddied with tiredness, Will feels out of control, like an overexerted child after a party. He reaches for Hannibal’s hand again, needing the comfort, and finds himself holding back a near-sob at the way Hannibal looks at him. His expression is rare and open. With his shoulders caved, his body lean from hunger, he seems quite a different animal to the sleek killing machine Will had taken off the cliff edge.  Now, his wounds are pink and clean under his stitches, his hair slicked back, and he looks new again.

“I didn’t know if we would survive this,” he starts, voice so soft it barely carries over the rumble of the water, “but I promised if I did, then we would have a conversation that consisted only of truths. No mirrors and no metaphors. Only us. You deserve at least that, for what you gave me that night.”

Will nods, making a noise of agreement. He’s in no condition to wax poetic.

“Mmkay.”

Hannibal looks at their laced hands, entertaining disbelief.

“I don’t know if we will ever be able to have a normal relationship, or even a healthy one. I don’t know if I’d want that for us, you are much too special for that.”

Will forces himself to talk despite the ache.

“What’s normal for us? I think this could be it.”

“And could you be happy with this? With me?”

He thinks. His eyes flutter closed at the myriad of images the question triggers, like a broken projector spitting out slides.

“The absence of you made such an ache in me, I didn’t know how to remedy it for so long. Of all the things you’ve ever made me feel, I don’t think any of them, after a certain point, could temper the love that sat below them.”

“Love,” Hannibal echoes, like a broken man.

“That’s all I can think it can be,” Will says stiffly, “what else could explain it? Obsession, fixation, it’s all born of love.”

“You love me.”

Will leans his good cheek against Hannibal’s shoulder, and feels him lift a hand to his hair.

“I don’t think the word does justice to how I feel about you, but it’s the only one I can think of that comes close.”

He sees that Hannibal is shaking. He lifts their hands to his mouth, lips brushing Will’s knuckles, his eyes slipping closed. Will aches at the tenderness of it, unable to keep from letting his thumb brush Hannibal’s chin.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, angling toward him. Eyes shining, Hannibal leans down, barely breathing. He lets Will kiss him with the barest noise, and then his hands come up to grip his jaw, cradling with such sweetness as Will has never imagined. They kiss again, and each press of their lips feels like an exaltation, shaky and unsure but with a fiercely beating heart. They don’t stop until they’re both trembling, and then they huddle back under the spray and watch the rusty water whirl down the drain, arms folded around one another and eyes sliding closed.

_/_

_Thanks for the prompt! Hope you liked it! xo_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	2. Strays

Written for the prompt: 

_"Hannibal and Will adopt a child after the fall though"_

*

They end up in Finland. 

Will doesn’t ask how long Hannibal has had this house; if he bought it in some anonymous auction for the obscenely rich, or if it it’s just part of his seemingly endless supply of escape routes developed over the years. He doesn’t talk much at all really, his jaw seized up and his cheek swollen, head and body throbbing in time with the circling wheels for every mile they travel. 

They’d had to fly from Washington, changing over in Copenhagen and staying the night in a lumpy hotel that made Hannibal’s mouth crease in displeasure for the duration of their stay. Then there was another flight, and then hours of driving, and then wound cleaning and medication taking and about three days of fitful on-and-off sleeping shifts. 

Now, the crushed bone in Will’s cheek crunches less when he raises his eyebrows, and his mouth has stopped feeling quite so alien to him despite the missing teeth and the groove in his palette. His body is still stiff and sore but he can manage a limping walk to the door for couriered deliveries of food sent by Chiyoh, on Hannibal’s behalf, from wherever she is. 

Hannibal’s wounds have taken a long time to get to bearable, but he’s arriving on that territory day by day. He must have a high pain threshold, because he never complains. 

At night, Will has nightmares that shake him to tears, and he wakes feeling for Hannibal in the dark, breathing until Hannibal tells him that they’re safe, they haven’t been found, no one has followed them. It’s several weeks before Will starts to believe him.

*

Eventually, Hannibal drives them from the remote house in the hills to the closest town for supplies, both of them feeling an itching need to get out whatever the cost. The eerie, woodsy landscape slides by the windows, frost glazed and bleak. Will wonders how long they’ll stay here in the cold: Hannibal seems to hate it. 

In town,they don’t even earn a glance from passers by. Hannibal has gathered a few weeks worth of stubble and has on a pair of sunglasses that make Will fight against the pain a smile would elicit. Their winter-wear is disguise enough, this far up North, with padded pants and hiking boots and hats that tie under chins.

They visit a local store, and the owner doesn’t glance up from the desk where he’s reading a paper. Hannibal picks among the food in the aisles, loading up a basket and looking for all the world like a scruffy European here on a skiing holiday. Will loves him then- for all his slippery, terrifying, faults, and for saving them. He always knows exactly what to do. 

*

Hannibal decapitates a local drunk for shouting something at them that Will understands not in language but instinctively in tone. He knows from the second the words hit them that it will be the last mistake the guy makes, but he’s still not prepared for the mess Hannibal makes outside their house that night in the snow. It looks like a Jackson Pollock.

“How’d you even get him to come with you?” Will asks, peering in distaste at the flayed body, already getting rigid in the cold as Hannibal cleaves off the extremities. 

“He was drunk, I asked if he needed a ride home.”

“No one saw you?”

“He was quite alone, as expected.”

Will folds his arms and leans against the doorframe, itching his pyjama’d leg with his toes. 

“What now?”

“I’ll shovel the snow, sink the body in the lake over the hill, eat the rest.”

“Don’t take his organs.”

“Thank you for your useless input, Professor Graham.”

That makes Will wince against a laugh again. He watches Hannibal work a while longer, then sighs. 

“What about the head?”

“I haven’t quite decided,” Hannibal muses, “I think I might put it in a jar.”

“That sounds… tacky.” 

“I said I hadn’t decided.” 

“Well, don’t decide on that.”

Hannibal nods his agreement, and he straightens up, dropping the arm he’s holding into a waiting cool box. His expression is suddenly tense. 

“Will, there’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“Before I took his head. Just before. He begged me to stop but it was too late.”

“And?” Sounds about normal. What Hannibal says next, however, does not. 

“He said he had a daughter.”

/

_Thanks for the ask- I guess I might do a bit more if I figure out how to uh… write kidnap into their repertoire? I don’t think they could legit ~adopt a child so this was the next best thing…. anywayyyyyyy………. hope you liked it, anon! x_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	3. Stars

Written for the prompt:

_"For the prompt thing, can I prompt Adam Raki/Nigel? Whatever you want really thanks"_

_*_

_Sure! Tbh it’s not a pairing I’ve ever written before so… this is more a prelude. I might write more, idk._

/

California is loud, and overwhelming, but Adam is getting better at it. He’s developed himself some new systems, and new routines, and work is going well, and he can finally look at the stars as much as he pleases and discuss their movements with people who don’t mind how much he has to say.

Sometimes, though, those things fade away and the big loud No inside him gets too much to bear.

The grocery store is fine- it all started out fine. Every Friday night after work he does his food shopping for the following week, travels home on the bus, and puts everything away before he makes dinner. Dad used to do the grocery shopping, and then Beth, he guesses, but now it’s all on him.

Tonight he bags his groceries, pays at the self-checkout, and leaves through the parking lot exit- it’s closer to the bus stop. The skyline is blushing candy pink with the sunset, and the first winks of the stars are starting to appear.

Walking across the empty lot, Adam is so busy looking up, he doesn’t notice the noise around him until he collides with it. There are a few general sounds of startled confusion, and then Adam sees three distinctly unfriendly faces directed his way. One of the hands attached to the unfriendly faces is holding a gun, and that gun is pointed at a fourth, more frightened face.

Startled, Adam stops, jaw going tight shut. Fear rises in the back of his mind like a blaring fog horn, making him blind for a moment to anything but that gun and that hand and that face. With three people staring at him, the fourth man turns, and runs. Adam watches with his eyes wide, then panics when the others notice too.

“Hey, hey- what the fuck-!”

“You little shit!”

Someone grabs him by the collar, and Adam drops his groceries. His screws his eyes shut.

“No!” He chokes out. “No no no-”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“No, no, no, nono nonono, no no no-!”

“Someone is going to fucking hear him, shut him up.”

Adam’s heart goes into overdrive and he lifts his arms, trying to protect his face, anything but hear and understand and know and wonder all at once.

“What the fuck?” says another voice. “What is he doing?”

“Let him go!”

Adam is released enough that he can cover his eyes with his hands, scrunching his shoulders to quiet all the noise. It takes him a few long moments to realise it’s him that’s making the high, unsteady whining, and that now there are a different set of hands on him and a voice that chimes through the auditory fog like a bell.

“Put your arms in front of your chest and breathe deeply.”

He thinks of Harlan, and how he always told him to do that when he was panicked. He still does it sometimes when he’s alone and overloaded, and it helps now immediately, coupled with the rocks of his head and the centring, almost tethering pressure on his shoulders. He breathes and he shakes until the noises all subside, and then the hands on him push him gently into staggering steps.

“Don’t think we’ll have too much trouble with this one, gentlemen,” says the voice again, cavalier, “he looks like he can’t get a fucking sentence out. Can I trust you morons to continue without me?”

Adam opens his eyes, and the man holding into him is large and imposing and tanned, his arms scarred and sharply muscled. He has a grocery bag slung over one massive arm.

“What were you doing? Were you going to kill that guy?”

“Kill him? Of course I wasn’t going to fucking kill him. We’re in public.”

“But you…”

“We were just shaking him up a bit. You surprised us, that’s all.”

“Where are you taking me-?” Adam asks, hating the way the words won’t come out anything other than bleating. If Harlan were here, what would he tell Adam to do?

“You were heading to the bus stop, right?”

It’s hard to understand him with the accent. Adam looks at his mouth to try better see the shape of the words. There’s a cigarette hanging from the corner.

“Yes. I take the bus home.”

“Makes sense that we’re going to the bus stop then, doesn’t it?”

“Why- why are you doing this?”

“I can see we frightened you,” the stranger says, “and you look about two fucking seconds from expiring. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“I can- I can get the bus on my own, I’m not a baby.”

“I didn’t say you fucking were.”

“Well you’re not frightening me any less by doing things I don’t want you to do.”

The stranger quiets, surprised for a moment.

“What’s your name, boy?”

Adam objects to being called ‘boy’, but a man who has friends with guns probably isn’t worth squabbling with. They get to the bus stop.  Adam doesn’t look back into the darkening parking lot, afraid of what he’ll see.

“Adam.”

“Nice to meet you, Adam. My name is Nigel.” He offers one big hand, and Adam shakes it awkwardly. He should say ‘nice to meet you too’ but, well, it isn’t.

“What happened back there? When you started- freaking out?” He seems to be choosing his words very carefully. Adam frowns.

“I saw a gun and people started yelling at me.”

“I know that part. What happened to you? Why were you screaming?”

“I- it’s a panic response, I can’t help it.” He feels uncomfortable being questioned about it, and he’s glad when he sees his bus in the distance, stopped at a red light.

“I see.” Nigel is still holding the groceries that Adam realises are his. “I had a kid like that. She didn’t like lots of noise.”

“Right.” Adam frowns at their shoes, unsure how to tell ‘Nigel’ that the noise scared him less than the gangster movie hold up in the parking lot. He gestures at the bags. “I can carry those, thank you.”

“I’ll bring them for you.”

“I don’t need you to, I’m perfectly capable.”

“You seemed very shaken before, I want to make sure you get home okay.”

“I don’t want you knowing where I live,” Adam snaps, before he can stop himself. He looks up, and Nigel has his head tilted, cigarette burnt down almost to the butt. He rolls the filter between his teeth a bit, considering, then takes it between his fingers and pinches it out with a nod.

“That’s very wise, Adam, but also a little fucking rude, don’t you think?”

“So is scaring someone in a parking lot,” Adam counters, “and following someone home.”

Nigel stalls again, falling silent. The bus pulls up, and Adam holds his hands out for his groceries.

“Thanks for walking me to the bus stop,” Adam says. He’s worried Nigel will react poorly, but he just hands over the bags, getting out his cigarettes.

“You’re a weird fucking guy, Adam,” he tells him. Adam cycles his head from side to side a bit, irritated.

“Thank you.”

He turns away, heading to the bus. Behind him, Nigel calls.

“Perhaps I’ll see you around.”

“I don’t think I’d like that,” Adam says.  He flashes his pass and goes to sit down in his usual seat. When he looks out the window, Nigel is still at the bus stop, smoking, smiling to himself. As the bus pulls away from the curb, Adam wonders what he was thinking about.

/

_I uh, I don’t think Adam would like Nigel very much at first. xo_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	4. Nevermore

For the prompt:

_"Hi there, I have a really strange plot bunny. Hannibal is gifted with an evil foul mouth talking bird hilarity ensues. eg the bird can recited recipes & sing naughty songs, thanks."_

_*_

_This might not be quite what you’re after but… I couldn’t resist. I loved the prompt, it really made me laugh._

/

The snow has been coming down hard every night this week, and Will is curled up reading a book by the fire when he sees the crow land on the patio. He watches it for a second, struck, and notices that it seems to be flailing in the snow, one wing stuck at an odd angle.

He stands up at once, not noticing Hannibal’s inquiring gaze as he pulls on a jacket and opens the patio door. If he briefly considers he might be imagining it, he doesn’t let himself acknowledge it.

The bird keeps flapping, and as Will approaches through the flurrying snow, he can see its feet are bound with leather cuffs and a length of tangled, knotted string. There are no neighbours for miles: perhaps it’s been stolen, or dumped. Or it escaped and the mangled wing is a recent acquisition.  It caws angrily as Will crunches across the flagstones, but it doesn’t make any attempt to move away.

“Hold on,” Will soothes, holding his hands out carefully, “I’m here to help.”

Brought to the door by the noise, Hannibal watches him as he grasps the bird gently, holding the functioning wing to its body and carefully stretching out the wrecked one.

“He looks like he’s been through the wars,” he comments carefully. Will sighs, gently pressing the wing back down, tucking the unresisting bird under his arm and shaking snow out of his eyes. Hannibal’s eyes widen with understanding. “Will.”

“I need the scissors to free his legs.”

“I’ll bring them to you.”

“It’s- it’s snowing!”

“Fine, to the doorway.”

“I want to look at the wing.”

Under his arm, the bird caws again, a warbling, feeble sort of noise. Hannibal wrinkles his nose in distaste.

“They carry diseases.”

“It’s obviously been a pet.”

Pushing past him, Will takes the bird into the bathroom. He grabs one of the pristine white towels from the rail and carefully folds the bird into it, cooing to calm it as it watches him with beady, blinking eyes. When Will pulls the towel too tight, the bird stirs, and shouts, “Fuck off!”

Will freezes. Then he laughs.

“Oh- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Fuck off!” The bird repeats. Will glances over his shoulder, and Hannibal’s arms are folded disapprovingly over his chest.

“You put one of our new towels on a rude bird.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s saying, Hannibal.”

“Hannibal,” the crow jeers, and Will shushes it.

“Are you going to put it back outside after this?” He gets some nail scissors from the bathroom cabinet and hands them to Will, watching him start to trim through the string that constricts the bird’s clawed feet.

“No, I’m going to put him in the bathroom for the night, feed him, and then drive him out to a shelter tomorrow.”

“Why not tonight?”

“Because it’s blizzarding?” Will shoots him a look over his shoulder.

“It will scream all night.”

“So do I, and you deal with it.”

“I care about you.”

“I care about this rude bird.”

There’s a brief, silent stand off, and then Hannibal sucks his teeth, which is about as close to a surrender as he ever gets.

“I’ll get it some meat.”

“Cooked, Hannibal, he might not have been fed anything raw before.”

Hannibal doesn’t curse under his breath, but his minute head shake has the same effect. Will snorts as the bird caws again under his arm.

“Hannibal!” It shouts, a perfect imitation of how the name sounds in Will’s voice.

“Don’t push your luck,” Will says, starting to snip at the string again. The bird goes still, watching the flash of the scissors. There’s something unnerving in the way it stares, though Will knows it’s probably the brightness rather than the sharpness. “Steady, won’t take long.”

By the time he’s finishing up, Hannibal has returned with  a tupperware box containing scraps of meat and vegetable from dinner. Despite his protesting, Will notices that the scraps have all been neatly diced and Hannibal has sprinkled a handful of cracked peanuts into the mix. As soon as Will tucks the bird back under his arm to offer it the tub, it scratches a bit in its excitement for food, head rolling a bit.

“Fuck off!” It screeches. Will catches the distaste at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth.

“Shut up, here, food,” he holds up the tub, and the crow immediately starts to wolf down the scraps, all the while whooping and warbling, and occasionally, swearing.

After the bird is fed, Will makes a nest with another clean towel in the bathtub and leaves the bird in there, stepping cautiously back to the door and carefully closing it in. He’ll check on it in the night, he reasons, and maybe feed it again if need be.

When he closes the door, he’s chest-to-chest with Hannibal, startled by his proximity.

“Jeez, you made me jump.”

Hannibal doesn’t say anything, just narrows his eyes, and looks briefly down. When Will follows his gaze, he sees that there’s quite a lot of bird faeces on his shirt, and now, Hannibal’s.

“Oh- shit.”

“Indeed.” Hannibal purses his lips. Will holds back his smile with all his strength.

*

The crow starts to loudly sing in the middle of the night. It takes Will a while to register the sound is real at first, and a moment longer still to understand  _why_ an eerie nightmare version of  _‘You Sexy Thing’_  by Hot Chocolate is wailing down the corridor.

It’s really quite good, for a bird. Will rubs his eyes and stays where he is, hoping it will get tired and stop soon- so often, if the dogs woke in the night back in Virginia, if he got up he’d never get them to settle down again.

The bird whoops the noise of the guitar, and then says something that sounds enough like “Come to daddy!” that Will can’t keep from snickering. There’s a brief moment of silence, a distant clank, and then a series of long, wailing caws.

Beside him, Hannibal sits up in bed and picks up Will’s gun off the dresser. Will’s jaw drops open stupidly.

“Hannibal!”

“I can bear it no longer, Will,” Hannibal says simply, “it’s the kindest thing.” He holds the gun out to Will, making him instinctively cringe back until he realises the nose isn’t turned on him. “Please, put me out of my misery.”

*

In the morning, Will opens the bathroom door to find the bird gone, and the place distinctly cleaner than it had been at three AM when the crow’s singing had gotten incessant enough for Will to make it more food. He heads downstairs with the vague notion in his head that Hannibal might be roasting it in the oven.

He is in fact not, but the sight that greets Will doesn’t make any more cognitive sense. The bird is perched on a binliner, draped over the back of the sofa in the living room, Hannibal sat on the seat beside it, drinking coffee and scanning news items on his tablet. They both look at him, and the sight of Hannibal flanked by a huge, gleaming black corvid is so incongruous for a second that Will really does doubt himself. He needs to go find a box big enough to be a repurposed house for a disobedient crow.

“… Everything okay?” He asks.

“Yes, everything is quite all right, Will. There’s coffee in the press if you want some.”

Beside him, the crow pipes up, “Fuck off!”, and Hannibal cringes.

“What did I tell you about that?” He says to the bird. It tilts his head, mirroring him. “That kind of language is uncalled for. You should devote your ability to utilise language to more noble pursuits.”

“Fuck-”

“Edgar.”

Will’s eyes widen. The crow tilts its sleek head again.

“Hannibal.”

He flicks his eyes in Will’s direction, and Will finally sees the flash of fun in him again, like the flash of a blade.

“Edgar,” he repeats to the crow, “quoth the raven?”

The crow flicks its tail feathers, then bobs its head.

“Nevermore!”

/

_I tried! XD Hope you like it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	5. Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is again set post TWOTL, and in an instance where Will participates in Hannibal's schemes. That's just how this particular universe rolls. Semi-graphic murder ahead, be warned.

Written for the prompt: 

_"My hopes and dreams!: Hanni is a funny guy (in his own cannibalistic way) and Will is exasperated. Covered head to toe in blood, the murder husbands go for a walk on Halloween night and gets compliments for their ‘costumes’! XD"_

*

_Thanks for the prompt! Loved it._

/

The house is still and empty, but Will senses the changing atmosphere in his nose like a viper flicking its tongue to taste the air. Sat beside him in a chair, Hannibal is poised with his eyes gleaming white in the dark. 

Outside, the sound of tyres on the drive is tempered by the general rigmarole of neighbourhood children cavorting in the streets, still oily with this afternoon’s rainfall in the dark. Will glances at Hannibal, bemused by their casualness.

“So the whole point of coming all the way back here was to kill a guy who was rude to you when he was dealing us fake IDs.”

“It’s not the point, but it’s a useful detour while we’re up this way,” Hannibal says, shrugging mildly. He’s looking as pedestrian as Will can ever remember seeing him in a soft, long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of jeans they’d bought purely because Hannibal would never be seen dead in them as far as Jack Crawford was concerned. Even so, he looks sleek as a mink in the dark, a crescent of white alighting his hair like a halo; the bones of his face aglow.

Outside, a car door slams, and Will hears their mark distracted by Trick or Treaters.

“What about DNA?” He frowns. “What about-?”

“Will,” Hannibal interrupts, covering his gloved hand with his own, “just trust me. It will be fine.”

Will thinks about that for a minute, then he sighs.

“You want Jack to know we’re coming.”

When Hannibal doesn’t answer, Will pushes his hair back from his face with a gloved hand. In the other, he holds an axe, taken from the yard on their way in.

“You want Alana to know we’re coming.”

“I promised her I would. I always keep my promises.”

Will can’t help but feel regret at the thought. He’s not entirely convinced Alana needs to die, but he can tell from the way Hannibal avoids speaking her name that the thought of her causing him indignity still spears him in some way. Maybe it wasn’t her infliction of indignity, but the acts of petty reciprocity. Despite being a great connoisseur on the matter, Hannibal loathes displays of paltriness in others.

Another private thought occurs to Will, and he thinks of the child Hannibal gifted to Alana and Margot, and his interest spikes.

“Hannibal…”

Holding a hand up to silence him, his wrist scars pale where they flash at the cuffs where his gloves and shirt part, Hannibal settles more comfortably in the chair as the front door opens. Letting out a silent sigh, Will takes a swig of whiskey from the flask out of his pocket.

The sounds of a single man going about his life permeate the air. They listen to the dealer go to the bathroom, wash his hands, and crack open a beer before he heads upstairs.

Hannibal rises from his chair, and Will follows him with an easy gait. Hannibal climbs up the stairs and slips onto the landing like a shadow. Will moves after him, covering Hannibal’s blind spots in a way that feels so intrinsically instinctive they feel like one lethal animal for a second. A knife flashes in Hannibal’s hand like a slice of peeled moonlight. Will lets his grip on the axe loosen so it slides down to the root in his hand, his other laying against the handle like he’s swinging a bat.

In the master bedroom, the dealer is getting changed. Hannibal and Will watch for a few long moments, and then Hannibal steps into the room and grips him by the hair with a motion like he’s picking a pomegranate from a fruit bowl. The man gasps, but Hannibal silences him with the knife at his throat.

“Would you like first swing?” He asks Will conversationally, over his shoulder.

*

They are both blood slicked and disgusting. The carpet is gouged with axe strokes, and a hand clings to a chair leg, severed at the wrist. A head stands on the windowsill, its mouth vomiting the crystal strings from the bedroom chandelier, two pear-shaped drops hanging from the lower eyelid like tears. Will heaves a few deep breaths, and then he wordlessly follows Hannibal back downstairs.

Humming to himself, Hannibal wipes his blade on a handkerchief that he throws carelessly onto the floor. He opens up a duffel bag he brought with him and takes out two masks, one in the iconic Jason style, the other a grotesque Leatherface thing that makes Will wrinkle his nose.

“What’re those?”

“Our costumes. We’re going Trick or Treating, Will.”

“We’re covered in blood-”

“So is everyone else in this neighbourhood. What’s stranger, Will, two people covered in blood leaving in a stolen car, or two people in Halloween costumes walking back to their own car through the neighbourhood?”

Will hesitates, sceptical, and Hannibal raises his eyebrows. Without looking away, he pockets his knife and puts the hockey mask on. Will is struck by it; dislikes it at once. Even so, he accepts the Leatherface mask and pulls it on with a sigh.

Without missing a beat, Hannibal hands him a toy chain-saw. Will glares at him through the eye holes of the mask.

“It will add levity to the situation.”

“I guess you get the real axe, huh?”

“It goes better with my costume.”

Handing it over with a heavy sigh, Will takes the plastic chainsaw. It even purrs when he pulls the string. In his periphery, he can see Hannibal’s eyes sparkling with amusement behind the mask, flecked with red.

*

The street is bright with lanterns and pumpkins, and it’s late enough that not many children linger now in the streets, herded by anxious parents. Now the crowd mostly extends to rowdy teenagers toting bags of toilet paper and eggs.

Though his chest is tight with the fluttering, reverberating strokes of his adrenaline ignited heart, Will can’t help but feel… free. The air is crisp and cool, and they’re walking hidden in plain sight together, hands occasionally brushing and their steps timed to the same beat.

The feeling falters briefly when one kid stares at them too hard as they pass, but then he grins, the screws glued to his green forehead shifting.

“Great costumes, dudes!”

“Thank you, young man,” Hannibal says pleasantly. Will lets his eyes roll hard so he doesn’t snort out loud.

/

_xo_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	6. Consequences

For the prompt:

  _"At their "last supper." After Hannibal has served the lamb, and after Will has insisted about Jack needing the truth, Hannibal decides to play his wild card. Instead of getting dessert, he brings Abigail to the table instead."_

_Okay I was fairly sure I couldn’t give this the attention it deserves so this is quite a BRIEF imagining of how I thought that might go. It also labours a bit on Will struggling with his decision so I guess it’s kind of a fix-it. Also it suggests at some point Hannibal got some fucking chill so sorry if that seems out of character._

/

“To the truth, then. And all its consequences.”

Will can see in the dim light that Hannibal’s eyes are bright with the first threat of tears, like rain laden clouds on the horizon. It wounds him to see the hurt there so transparently, and Will can’t help it; he drops his gaze.

“I’m not sure what the truth is anymore.” He breathes the words out, uncertain he’s truly said them aloud until he glances back up and Hannibal is watching him, the plump of his lips pursed in a moue of intrigue.

“What had you seen it to be, Will? Another clever game thought up by Uncle Jack?”

“Not clever enough, but too clever for me,” Will murmurs.  He clasps his hands as if in prayer, elbows against the lip of the table. He feels his voice threatened by a sob. “Hannibal.”

Hannibal watches him with a practised dispassion that neither of them buy.

“Did you play yourself, as well as me?”

“Only in the sense that I got so deep it drowned me,” Will breathes. He rubs the heel of his palms into his eye sockets like that might take the sting of tears away. All the moments he’s wished to sink the proverbial knife in; to see Hannibal in that cell. And all it took was one look at the way the betrayal had nicked him to make him waver.

“Whatever you tell me, Will,” Hannibal murmurs, head tilting like a bird, “if it is the truth, I will believe it. Whatever truth you give me now will be the one I accept.”

“And if it’s a truth that you despise?” Will’s lip curls on the word, teeth baring because he knows, he knows what Hannibal’s disdain could do to him- to them.

“I can be forgiving, Will, you know I can. I’ve forgiven you a great many trespasses. Have you forgiven mine? Or is this all some thorny branched plan of revenge?”

“I think that’s what it started as,” Will admits, voice hollowed out and small, “but somewhere along the way it became something else.” His eyes go unfocused, searching in the mid-distance; the forest on the walls. Hannibal sets down his glass.

“You became something else,” he whispers. After a few halting seconds, Will nods.

“When I changed Randall Tier…” Will breathes, “I felt two halves of me slide on top of one another, like a projector focusing.”

Hannibal sees it: the two halves, coming together, like a glitched image. At first they’re both Will, but sometimes, when the image distorts, one of the faces is his own. Hannibal’s breath shakes out at the realisation. He curbs the impulse to cover Will’s clasped hands with his own.

“You became whole.”

“Almost whole.” Will shivers a bit. “Without you, I don’t think I’ll be whole anymore.”

“Can you be whole if Jack never has his truth?”

Will pauses. Hannibal watches the lights move behind his eyes as he thinks. When the silence stretches between them, he isn’t sure Will hasn’t gone somewhere else, until finally he speaks again.  

“I spent so long thinking of how this would come to pass,” he breathes, “and now I’m here, I can’t make up my mind.”

His own mind made in a split second, Hannibal puts dabs the corners of his mouth and sets his napkin down.

“Let me help you.”

Will watches him, pale eyes clouded with uncertainty. He’s concerned- not without reason- that Hannibal may be thinking of ways to dispose of him now. They both know that if Will were to go missing, though, Jack would know, and Hannibal would have to run.

Slowly, Will nods.

“All right.”

He watches Hannibal rise smoothly from the table, leaving the dining room and disappearing silently down the hall. Will waits, fingers touching at the reassuring weight of the gun against his hip. Strange, he’d never felt comfortable wearing it before he’d shot Hobbs.

Hannibal’s footsteps again when he returns. He hovers in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder, and Will stands up in readiness.

When Abigail walks into the room, he almost has to sit back down again. All the steel that had built up in him since he’d been left in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane suddenly swept out of him like an ocean obliterated by wind. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Only tears.

“Will,” Abigail says it gently, and she reaches out to him as if to prove she’s real. Her hand, sure enough, is warm and firm. Will clasps it in his own and then he pulls her in before he can compose himself, hand finding the back of her sleek hair, grounding himself in her solidity. His chest heaves as he looks at her, taking in every freckle.

“Abigail,” he says it like a prayer. 

“I didn’t know what to do,” she whispers, hands tight on him. When he peers he can see her left ear is gone. Horror washes over him, but he sees everything now; every thought that connected to make the events that nearly drove him insane.

Abigail is watching him with apprehension, her wide eyes so blue they’re electric. Will wonders how often in the last few months he’s been within metres of her; how often she’s thought of him visiting her empty grave. Her empty grave. She’s here. She’s real. She’s here. He gave her to you. 

He wraps his arms around her, trying to catch his breath, and she comes willingly, pressing gratefully into his chest. 

“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he whispers into her hair. She makes a tearful noise that’s a little like a laugh, and her arms fold around his back gently.

“It’s me who should be sorry, you went to prison…”

He snorts despite himself. Then he looks up, not sure why he’s laughing when the reason he went to prison is hovering in the doorway like an intruder in his own house. He doesn’t let go of Abigail as he and Hannibal watch one another. Thoughts swarm Will like a cloud of flies, each batting off him, a droning whine in his ears. He swats one, and he knows that Hannibal is giving him a choice. Bring the teacup back together, or let it remain shattered.  _Are you going to let his love go to waste?_

With Abigail in his arms, mostly whole, he’s not even sure he has to debate it. He pretends to himself that the decision is hard made, the prize hard won. Like always, he’s not sure exactly who he’s lying to anymore.

“Did you mean what you said?” He says. “About leaving tonight?”

Hannibal’s mouth curls in a smile so faint Will thinks anyone else might not know that he was pleased to the tips of his toes.

“We don’t even need to pack. We can just disappear.”

Will looks down at Abigail, and her eyes urge him. As he nods, it feels like stepping willingly off the edge of a precipice, hoping to be treated gently by the fall. The truth, and all its consequences.

“All right,” he murmurs, “let’s go.”

/

_Thanks! xo_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	7. Rain

Written for the prompt:

_"Maybe a prompt where Hannibal and Will meet when Will is hitchhiking? Maybe right before Season 1, maybe way before - either way, Hannibal considers eating him, but for some reason doesn't do it : >"_

-

The rain comes down in thick sheets, lashing at the windows and making ghosts in the Bentley’s headlights. Hannibal feels a flat mote of irritation under his disappointment at a night derailed by an ill-timed visit from his target’s estranged brother. The card will keep, as will the recipe, but a wasted trip is always a frustration. Lost in constructing his next visit, Hannibal almost doesn’t notice the figure walking in the middle of the road up ahead, until a mound in the tarmac bounces his lights up and catches pale skin and a saturated white t-shirt. 

Slowing to a crawl as he approaches, Hannibal peers through the dark and wonders, just for a moment, if he’s imagining it. The figure in the road seems to be a man, bare legs obscured by muddy trails as if he’s been running through grass or marsh, some blood mottled with the brown. He seems to be wearing only undershorts.

Making a quick decision, Hannibal pulls over, leaving the engine running as he gets out of the car. His breath comes in small, silvery puffs. 

On closer inspection, the man in the road seems to be oblivious to Hannibal’s presence, shambling barefoot through the rain, making slow progress. Hannibal tilts his head in consideration, thinking of the supplies in his trunk;  his upcoming dinner party. 

Something stops him. Inquisitiveness, mostly.

“Sir, are you in need of assistance?” He calls, voice cutting clear as a bell through the still night. The man in the road is still walking, though it seems to be more of a shuffling amble. Perplexed and intrigued, Hannibal catches up to him in a few long strides, and carefully peers at him. Eyes open, features blurred by rain, hair dripping. Even so, there’s something non-present about  him. 

Tentatively, Hannibal reaches out and checks his pulse, slow but occasionally erratic.

“Your body has decided to wake up before you, young man,” Hannibal says, more to himself than anything. As the stranger hasn’t registered the touch to his wrist, Hannibal stands in front of him and gently turns him back toward his car. In the glare of the headlights, the stranger is both younger than Hannibal expected and more interesting to look at. The pale blue of his eyes almost vanishes in the car’s beams, raindrops glinting in the ends of his hair.

He blinks, then, and looks around, and Hannibal watches his gaze focus on him.

“Hello,” he offers, “I’m sorry to alarm you. I’m a doctor, I was out for a drive and I spotted you in the road. Do you know who you are?”

“I’m... my name is Will Graham,” he replies, lifting a hand to rub his eyes, abruptly starting to shiver as he looks around. 

“Do you know where we are, Will?” He shakes his head. “Where do you live?”

“Uh, Wolftrap, Virginia. I just moved there.”

“You’ve walked a long way,” Hannibal murmurs. “Do you sleepwalk often?”

“Not... sometimes, not usually like this...” he looks stricken, and lost, and Hannibal feels an unusual bubble of pity rise in him. 

“Would you object to being taken to a hospital, Will? I am worried about how long you’ve been out here. There are a couple of cuts and scrapes on your legs, you might need a couple of stitches.”

Will hesitates only a couple of seconds, looking down at himself, and then he shakes his head.

“I don’t object. I’ve got insurance.”

It takes Hannibal only a second to retrieve what he needs from the trunk of his car - a blanket to wrap Will in, and his gym-bag towel to wipe his hair and skin. Regardless, he hurries, not wanting to take his eyes off him for fear of him slipping away into the night.

For a moment, the thought flares in him that Will could later identify Hannibal in a lineup; that he will be required to give a statement if the police are called. He pushes it down, curiosity taking over: had his evening’s assignments been successful, he would not have been able to spare him, but tonight he has no need for an alibi. He almost forces himself to dismiss the idea of fate. 

When Will has been adequately cleaned of mud and rainwater, Hannibal wraps him in the blanket and closes the passenger door with him inside the car. Will is silent as they drive, still shivering though Hannibal has cranked the heat almost uncomfortably high. In the confined space, his nose is overwhelmed with the scent of cold sweat, earth, and cinnamon. Hannibal focuses on that for a second, and feels a click of recognition somewhere deep in his brain: fever.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. Will gives him a look out of the corner of his eye as though he’d like to be snarky, but can’t find the energy.

“I’m uh, tired. I have a headache. I’m a little unsettled.”

“Understandably,” Hannibal nods. He lets the car pick up speed, eating up the distance quicker.

*

At the hospital, Hannibal sits in the emergency room and fills out forms with nothing but guess work. Following the nurse who looked him over, Will looked like a man led to the gallows, but Hannibal hadn’t missed him glancing back, his expression alighting briefly with unasked questions.

“I’ll wait a while,” he offered. Will had given him a single, grateful nod.

Now, three gritty cups of coffee later, a nurse comes to him.

“Your friend is in a bed, we’ve run a couple of tests and taken some blood, I think the doctor on tonight would like to get him an MRI scheduled for tomorrow.”

“That’s good,” Hannibal nods, “better to be thorough.”

“Do you know anyone Will might need calling? He doesn’t seem in the mood to talk.”

“I’m afraid not, I just met him tonight, in fact I almost ran him over. I should say goodnight to him if he’s staying in, I’ll ask him if there’s anything he needs.”

The nurse smiles at him. Her hair is strawberry blonde, her teeth white. 

“Looks like he lucked out, walking in front of your car.”

Hannibal smiles, and stands.

Will looks cleaner and calmer in the hospital bed. He opens his eyes a crack when Hannibal knocks softly on the door, and starts to sit up.

“Please, rest,” Hannibal stops him, touching his shoulder as he comes to sit down, “the staff tell me you’re being kept in for observation and further tests tomorrow. Is there anyone you’d like me to call?”

Will shakes his head.

“No, it’s all right. I can call  work tomorrow.”

“And is there anything else you need? I could go to your house and fetch you some things.”

“That’s not necessary, thank you. You’ve done enough.”

Hannibal nods, and then takes a card out of his wallet and places it on Will’s bedside table.

“Please, don’t hesitate to call if you change your mind.”

Will watches him for a few long moments, eyes doing a trail from Hannibal’s face, to his outstretched hand, and he nods.

“I won’t, I promise.”

As Hannibal leaves the hospital, he makes a note of the ward: perhaps he should bring Will breakfast tomorrow.

-

_This probably wasn’t what you had in mind anon, but I cannot help but turn any and all prompts into new ways Hannibal and Will might fall  in love, SORRY. xo_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	8. Coddle

Prompt:

_"Hi :D So, how about that sequel to the sleepwalking Will? Maybe Hanni driving Will home from the hospital and being a little overwhelmed by Will's dogs? ("Maybe I should eat him after all, he seems like a lost cause anyway...") Or Hanni bringing Will his protein scramble/chicken soup and Will welcoming him wearing only pink shorts ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"_

_Thanks for prompting me so I don’t forget about this!_ _  
*_

When Hannibal goes back to the hospital the next day, Will has been moved to a neurology ward, where he has a private room and a relatively comfortable one at that: his grade of insurance is undoubtedly the perk of a fairly decent job. 

As he arrives outside, Hannibal stalls in the hallway, inhaling: quiet vibrations, and the scent of sleep. He closes his eyes to listen to the barest whisper of Will’s breaths in the doorway, and then opens them again. The sight of him, vulnerable and soft, arouses a feeling in Hannibal that he has not indulged in quite a while: fondness. Appetising bruises decorate Will’s throat where it’s bared with the turn of his head. Hannibal lingers on his veins, eyes tracking from his wrists, the backs of his hands, to the faint throb of his jugular.

Tearing his gaze away, Hannibal picks up his chart. The diagnosis, as expected, is encephalitis. His mind engulfed by flames. 

Hooked up various monitors and an IV for his treatment, Will looks small and pale in the bed. When Hannibal comes to settle down in the chair by his side, his eyelids flicker open. He takes in Hannibal’s countenance, and the clipboard in his hands, and blinks in realisation.

“What kind of doctor did you say you were?”

“I was a surgeon, now I practise psychiatry.” 

Nodding, Will looks at the ceiling.

“I could have done with you around before the sleep walking, I’ve thought I was going insane for weeks.”

Hannibal tilts his chin in engagement.

“I probably would have thought your symptoms psychological at first, so perhaps it’s good that you didn’t.” He smiles. Will doesn’t. “Are you hungry? I took the liberty of bringing you dinner.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Will protests faintly. Even though he looks sallow at  the thought, he sits up, and Hannibal is pleased.  

“I cook for myself every night, so it was not an imposition.” He produces homemade broth and fresh bread, setting it up on the table when Will gets shakily out of bed, carting his IV behind him. He sits unsteadily down. He’s wearing socks and shorts with his gown, and one of the wounds on his leg from the night before has been stitched.

“Did you get a tetanus shot for that?” Hannibal asks, nodding toward it.

“I’m all up to date, I have dogs,” Will says. He dips his bread into his soup and takes a mouthful, and Hannibal watches his expression go pleased whilst carefully schooling his own intense joy.

“It’s delicious,” Will murmurs, “I don’t think I’ve ever had chicken soup this good.”

Hannibal does not dignify that gross reduction with a response, but he does smile and bow his head.

“Thank you,” Will adds, softly, “for everything.”

“You’re welcome.” Hannibal passes him a napkin, and settles into eating his own dinner for a moment, the silence between them more or less comfortable. Eventually, Hannibal looks up.

“So, what do you do, Will?”

“I’m a teacher,” Will says, somewhat dubiously.

“You’re not sure?”

“I also do some consulting work.”

“Ah. What is it that you consult on?”

“Crime scenes, mostly.”

“Heavy work.”

“It is if you’re used to levity, I guess,” Will sighs, sounding almost sorry for himself for a second. When Hannibal’s gaze lingers on him a moment too long, he clears his throat. “The teaching is more full time. I’m a lecturer at Quantico academy.”

“What do you lecture on?”

“Behavioural Science, though I’m a Forensic Specialist by trade.”

Failing to hide his slight surprise, Hannibal averts his gaze to his dinner.

“I see. That sounds a very mentally taxing career, Will, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“I don’t mind, though I get the feeling you’re inferring something in particular about said mental taxation.”

Subtlety, it seems, is not Will’s forte. Hannibal abandons it.

“How long had you been having symptoms of encephalitis without noticing, Will? Have you been losing time regularly, or hallucinating?”

“My mental health is spotty at the best of times, I hadn’t particularly thought it was physical- like I said, I just thought I was going insane.”

“Do you have a therapist, at the moment?” Hannibal asks, perhaps too bluntly, from the way Will’s lip curls.

“Therapy doesn’t tend to help me all that much.”

“I suppose a Behavioural Science teacher already knows all the tricks.”

“That’s the gist of it.”

“Perhaps you just haven’t found the right therapist. If you like, I could give you a list of referrals, one of them might be to your taste.”

Will’s eyes attach to Hannibal’s for an instance, and his face goes closed and perhaps a touch embarrassed.

“With respect, Doctor Lecter, I don’t think I’m ever going to be comfortable with anyone prodding around in my head, even if it seems like I need it.”

“I understand that, but I am nonetheless concerned about your nonexistent gauge for your own deteriorating health, be it mental or physical. I assume from the fact that you’ve had no other visitors today that you’re unmarried?”

Will’s jaw ticks.

“You assume correctly.”

“Will.” Hannibal leans forward, a gentle touch on his arm meant to soften his defences. “I would like to collect you from the hospital when you’re ready to be discharged, and continue to keep an eye on you. It can be in whatever capacity you choose, be it a short visit, lunch, or just conversations. Though it would be unorthodox, I would be more than happy to take you on as a patient, as well.”

It’s true. It’s rare Hannibal is intrigued by someone the way he is Will. He can’t quite explain it- there’s a glimpse of something in his tired expression; his straight, grim smiles; the way walking through the woods on a rainy night had seemed unremarkable to him.

Will is staring at his hand on his arm, visibly torn with the desire to pull away and the fiercer-still need to savour the contact.

“I don’t need a therapist,” he rumbles, eventually. He pulls his hand back, refocusing on his soup. Hannibal studies the spiralled nick in his curly hair, not quite in the centre, where it naturally parts. He sees, in that instant, the pale underbelly of Will’s hurt, like that of a snake. As ever, he goes for the throat.

“How about a friend? Heaven knows, we could all use one more of those, I know I could.”

The thin smile appears again, no teeth, square jaw.

“You could argue that a friend who is a psychiatrist is still going to act like a psychiatrist,” Will retorts.

“You might be surprised at how good the friend is at not being a psychiatrist.”

Silence, considering and not as hostile as Hannibal expected. He turns his head like he’s studying a piece of art.

“I’m not sure I find you that interesting,” Will says, finally. It’s a feebly transparent rejoinder, meant to sever Hannibal’s interest and coddle the infection of his kindness. 

Despite himself, Hannibal smiles.

*

TBC.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	9. Fall

Prompt:

_"You do Hurt/Comfort like no one else. I've reread chapter 6 of A Hallow Ache like 10 times, makes me so warm. I'd like to prompt one of them (your pick) being a panicky mess while separated against their will and falling apart in tearful relief upon reuniting, needing to be gentled."_

_Oh you know how to push my buttons. I’m weak for this prompt. Also thank you for the kind words!_

**WARNINGS: The angst is strong in this one. NO character death, but grief, catatonia, nightmares etc. My usual shtick.**

*****

He comes around to the sound of the ocean, sand between his fingers, pain in his limbs. Hannibal takes stock of himself, and carefully lifts his head. It’s possible, so he hasn’t been paralyzed, as far as he can tell. He tips himself onto his side, coughing up salt water, retching. It seems to take all his energy, and for a moment he lies there recuperating, waves creaming around his body.

It takes what must be ten minutes to get himself sat up. When he does, he looks around slowly, covering the wound on his stomach with one heavy hand. His heart starts to pound when he realises he’s very much alone on the gravelly shore, the grey sky overhead promising rain, possibly a storm.

“Will?” he tries to say, and his voice comes out as a croak. 

Time crawls by another few minutes, the ocean roaring, coastal birds calling overhead. Slowly, achingly, Hannibal gets to his feet. His legs feel liable to give out from beneath him. He looks up, and the cliff towers above him. No signs of searchers, or Jack, or anyone at all.

And no Will. With growing trepidation, Hannibal paces a few metres, back and forth, eyes scanning the horizon keenly. When he sees nothing, he walks further, though his traumatised bones protest and his stomach reminds him with every step that he’s lucky he hasn’t bled to death already. When he can’t go any further, he sits down, and then falls back onto the sand, unconscious.

*

He hears the distant tinkling of a koto when he awakens, though it has the distant quality of a recording. Sitting up, he finds himself not in prison, or in the cliff house, but in a cabin small enough that he can see Chiyoh at the small desk, writing in a weathered journal with a radio playing beside her. The cabin smells of woodsmoke, but also briny and damp, so it’s easy to imagine they’re still by the coast.

“I’ve done the best I could with your wound,” Chiyoh tells him, still writing, “and I’ve been listening to the local radio stations for any news, but so far there’s nothing.”

Nothing about Will. Hannibal feels an unfamiliar swell of panic rise inside him, ice cold and ugly. It seizes his heart and squeezes, his breath stuttering out. He only remembers feeling like this twice before.

“Was there any sign of him on the beach?” he presses, trying to be practical.

“Nothing,” Chiyoh answers, “I saw the tape. The state he was in- you were both in- it’s a miracle you even…”

At Hannibal’s expression, she falls silent, and rises smoothly from her chair, coming to him. “Lie down, I need to change your dressing.”

He does so, trembling, and her hands are cool as she cleans up the bleeding from his exit wound, though it’s been neatly stitched.

“He might have been washed further down the coast,” Hannibal starts, voice horribly uneven. Chiyoh tips him onto his side to see to his back, saying nothing. “He’s sailed before, he probably knows what to do if he finds himself pitched into the water.”

“Hannibal,” Chiyoh sounds suddenly tired, instead of brisk and pragmatic. She tips him back down and meets his gaze, “with the wounds he had, and the fall you took, it’s very unlikely he survived… it’s a miracle either of you did.”

“A body would have washed up,” Hannibal starts to protest, but she cuts him off.

“You know that’s not necessarily true. He could have hit the bottom, or gotten caught on something, or still be out there,” her expression turns severe, “you need to be realistic, and we need to get out of here as soon as it’s safe for you to travel.”

Hannibal looks at her, with her hard, dark eyes, and her bloody hands, and finds himself hating her for a moment.

*

He sleeps fitfully, his mind playing over his last moments with Will on a loop, unbidden. Twice in the night he jerks upright and gags with the pain, and Chiyoh has to change his bandages by lantern light, frowning to herself.

By the next morning, Hannibal feels a curious coldness setting in. He stares out of the little window across from the bed, where the steel-coloured waves still toss and roil, foaming against the rocks. He would ask how far they are from the house, and how Chiyoh found him, and what happens next, but he finds that he just doesn’t care.

“I’ve made oatmeal,” Chiyoh tells him, bringing him a bowl, sitting with him as he makes a vague effort at moving it around with his spoon. When he doesn’t attempt to actually eat any, she tries to take it off him, raising a scoop to his lips, but he turns his face away and she soon gives up. 

“You’ll die if you keep this up,” she tells him. He tries to remember why he should be upset by the thought.

*

The numbness spreads. Bed-bound and becoming steadily more overcome by grief, Hannibal spends days staring at the beamed, watermarked ceiling, unseeing. In his mind, Will steps close to him, leans into his arms, slicked with crimson blood. When he pulls back, he smiles, teeth a crescent moon of white in the dark sky of his face.

It changes, then. Will sitting down opposite Hannibal at a dinner table, lavishly spread. If there is a room around them, Hannibal cannot see it; only blackness, endless and soothing, and in front of him, Will.

“Dinner is delicious,” he says, in the same way Hannibal has heard him say it many times before, teeth bared around the ‘d’, his canines gleaming. 

“I’m glad you like it,” Hannibal says. Will casts his lashes down, sweeping one hand back to smooth the hair out of his eyes. Hannibal looks down at the knife in his hand. A terrible fear starts in him.

“Hannibal,” Will asks, softly, “what is it?” Blood starts to bloom through the right shoulder of his shirt and jacket, making the dark fabric inky black with it. Hannibal looks down again and his dinner knife is now a hunting blade, gleaming red.

The wound on Will’s cheek opens up, the blood pouring out. He lurches with the pain, spitting teeth onto his dinner plate, lips stained crimson. His hand grips the white table cloth, printing it with red stars.

“Will,” Hannibal wants to say he didn’t do it, that it wasn’t his intention, but Will is swaying now. His eyes glaze over.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathes, and then he starts to cough. Hannibal smells sea water, and he kicks his chair back to go to him, but it topples backward, and when it hits the floor he wakes with a jolt.

Chiyoh looks at him from the door, just closed behind her. It’s dark now, and the torch in her hands is still glowing. At Hannibal’s searching eyes, she just shakes her head.

*

After several days, between dutiful searches along the coast, Chiyoh forces Hannibal out of bed and into the tiny bathroom in the corner of the cabin.

“You need a shower,” she says, undressing him clinically and handling him into the narrow cubicle. He stands under the lukewarm water with his head bowed, but can’t muster the energy to wash himself. She sighs, and moves in to help him.

Dried and dressed, he lets himself be steered into a chair by the fire. He stares into it, and finds himself once more consumed by thoughts of Will. He’s seen victims of drowning before, both during and after the fact. It pierces him to know that if Will is dead, it will not have been a peaceful departure. The thought of him, waterlogged and bloated, a John Doe with a toe-tag in some morgue somewhere, is enough to make him feel physically sick.

*

“Hannibal, we need to leave,” Chiyoh tries again. She’s loaded his belongings into the truck outside, and stripped the beds of linens. The fire is long dead in the grate, the whole place sprayed down and wiped. Hannibal has been distantly aware of her movements, but now her words seem foreign to him. 

“Hannibal,” Chiyoh tries again, “we can’t stay here.  They’ll come for you.” For the first time, she sounds unsure and out of her depth; young. 

Staring into the empty fire grate, Hannibal can’t bring himself to move. She watches him for several minutes, and then sighs and goes to the car to retrieve their belongings.

*

The next time Hannibal sees himself, or even becomes aware of himself, it’s when Chiyoh is washing him down in the shower basin, her arms bare where she’s rolled up her sleeves. She looks exhausted, and her hands move perfunctorily over his skin. She has long since given up talking to him.

Over her shoulder, Hannibal catches sight of himself in the mirror, his hair getting longer, a beard grown in. He’s starved lean, the bones in his shoulders strangely pronounced. He looks away, feeling an alien sort of detachment from himself.

*

Chiyoh packs a bag one night, and in the morning when Hannibal wakes up, she’s gone. He closes his eyes against the realisation- against everything- and pulls the sheets up over his head. Outside the rain pounds the small windows, making a blanket of white-noise that sends him back through the doors of his memory palace, to sharing breakfast with Will in motels, trading witticisms, growing closer. Unbidden, he thinks of him at the bottom of the ocean, hair swaying in the current, white eyes unblinkingly staring toward the surface. Screwing his eyes up against the pain it brings, Hannibal turns his face into the mattress and wills himself to sleep. He briefly indulges the thought that Will might manage to kill him after all. It seems oddly satisfactory that his demise should be from the sheer absence of him, like some ancient tragedy. Even Orpheus, though, had glimpsed Eurydice one last time.

*

He dreams again, of walking through a run down, unfamiliar house, a hand clasped in his behind him. When he turns to see his companion, the corridor is empty, the touch phantom, and he goes on alone up the creaking stairs. Outside the rain is still falling, lightning flashing against the windows. Hannibal moves across the landing, peering into rooms, seeing the teenage bedroom sparsely decorated with posters- the constellations by hemisphere on one poster, Bowie’s Aladdin Sane on the other. The bedsheets on the single bed are plain and balding cotton, but the bed is made neatly. Hannibal takes in the handmade bedside drawers, the sagging bookshelves, and he feels the hand inside his gently squeeze. He looks back, but once again, the hall is empty. He steps further into the room, fingertips trailing the spines of the books, most second hand or well-loved, by the looks of things. Other than books, there’s not much, just a few scattered bits and pieces, a Rubix cube, some playing cards.

He has a sense of deja vu, not at being here, but at the sight of the space.  He thinks of a polaroid photo on a bookcase; a young Will and his father, both of them surly and uncomfortable-looking. The thought makes Hannibal inhale deeply, shocked at his own subconscious.

On impulse, he plucks a book off the shelf: a battered copy of Homer’s Iliad. Cracking it at the middle, he takes in the pencil annotation, in an all-too familiar hand.

_“While the men kept on fighting at the well-decked ships, Patroclus went to Achilles, his people’s shepherd, shedding warm tears, like a fountain of dark water whose stream flows over the lip of a sheer rock face.”_

Hannibal opens his eyes, and the words continue, softly read in a hoarse voice.

“’Looking at him, swift-footed, godlike Achilles felt pity. So he spoke to him—his words had wings…’”

Will stops reading to flip a page one-handed, the other curled into Hannibal’s. His hair is longer, his face mottled with bruises, a large dressing taped over his cheek and one of his eyes, the other deeply purple and black. He looks at Hannibal, and stops. Hannibal stops too, and they’re both silent for a long time.

“Hey,” Will says eventually, tone gentle, “I’m sorry it took me so long to come. I was unconscious for… a long time.” 

“That is a pitiful excuse,” Hannibal croaks. Will’s expression softens.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. Hannibal reaches up to touch his cheek, scarcely believing it can be real.

“I dreamed about you every night,” he confesses, “I thought you had died.”

“Me too,” Will says, with a slight wistfulness. “I came as soon as I could.  Chiyoh- she found me, no one had identified me because the swelling. She uh, said I was her brother.”

“Half,” Chiyoh interjects, from the desk. Hannibal almost laughs. 

“She is very resourceful,” he praises. Will just nods, his smile crooked with discomfort. 

“Doesn’t uh, doesn’t look like you’ve been doing too good, Hannibal,” he says gently, “what, were you just gonna waste away? Let Jack find you?” He looks unbearably sad at the thought, his one open eye too-bright. Just the sight of it makes Hannibal swallow the tightness in his own throat. He blinks a few times, and feels hot tracks. 

“I found the thought of your dying… unendurable,” he confesses, “unless I was right behind you.”

Will squeezes his hand hard, tossing his book onto the side, leaning in to cradle Hannibal’s jaw with his hand.

“Well, no need for that now,” he murmurs. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Hannibal knows they will have to tread back over the earth they’ve turned at some point, but he can’t right now, not when Will is climbing gingerly to lie beside him on the narrow bed, their hands never unlocking between them. Hannibal puts his other hand on Will’s waist and holds on, breathing in the scent of him, banishing all thoughts but this one.

“I’m not going,” Will promises again softly, “not without you.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


	10. Chaos

**The prompt was:**

**(1/3) Hello! I have been re-reading "A Hollow Ache" and some ideas popped into my head. I'd like to submit a prompt - please feel free to use any or none of it as you wish: (1) “Sometimes I feel like I’m becoming someone else when I’m with you, Will,” he murmurs, “but I’m not sure it isn’t the person I’m meant to be.” I wonder about the small, everyday moments in which Hannibal realizes he's changing, reacting to the world different, experiencing emotions he cannot name. (2)**

**“… (2) Hannibal keeps a grown-up version of Mischa in his mind palace, and speaks with her as adult siblings do. Mischa notices he has changed as well. He asks her for advice. Mischa is a vehicle reminding Hannibal of who he may have meant to be, and reminds him that he is deserving of varieties of happiness.”**

_Hi, anon! So, I don’t know if this is quite what you had in mind, but I loved the idea of Hannibal maintaining an imaginary relationship with Mischa and puzzling over his relationship with Will with her in that way. I think it sort of kills two prompts with one stone? It’s set in the universe of A Hollow Ache, but isn’t quite related to the story. Anyway, I hope you like it._

*

Will falls asleep on him, cheek pillowed against his chest and one hand loosely clenched in the hem of his shirt. It’s not the first time Hannibal has witnessed it- he’s often fascinated by Will’s drift between one world and the other, and how little rest he seems to find in either of them. Tonight, though, Will had pulled off his shorts and shirt and slid into bed beside Hannibal like it was fundamental; as if he’d shed his shyness with his clothes; like this had become his default, so natural it no longer required the mental effort of second guesses.

Hannibal watches him for a long moment, still holding his book in one hand, and then he leans to kiss his forehead. His eyes return to the page, and though he continues to read and absorb, a greater part of his mind starts to work.  

“He seems more comfortable with you than anyone ever has been,” a familiar voice says. Hannibal eyes his sister over the top of his book, watching her flick her fair hair back from her face as she perches on the windowsill of their room.

Failing to accept the great separation her death had created, he has maintained an image of Mischa since he was a young man. She first appeared to him in the corridors of his mind palace as a soft-edged, bonnie teenager, intent on learning all she could about what she’d missed so far. He tries to talk to her in the way he would have, had she survived, though so far, he has been unable to imagine her as an adult proper, instead keeping her stranded in youth so that she might not suffer a second death. She looks more and more like their mother now he’s edging out of the middle age of his life, with regal bone structure, warm brown eyes, and a propensity for contrariness he can only assume comes from him.  

“Not anyone, but most people,” he agrees, glancing down at Will, turning a page.

“You like him a lot,” Mischa observes, twirling a silver bangle on her wrist. Hannibal can’t find an answer to that which isn’t peevish, so he doesn’t. From the corner of his eye, he can see her getting down from the windowsill, moving around their room. She touches at Will’s belongings, picking up his book, his spectacles. She tries them on, and Hannibal stifles his fond smile.

“Put them down, he’ll panic if he can’t find them.”

She does, but with a pout. Her pale dress flares in the breeze from the ajar shutters. Her fingers skim the edge of the coverlet at the foot of the bed.

“You’ve never loved before, have you, Hannibal?” She murmurs. It takes him a long minute to sort through his own head for answers.

“Not like this.”

“He’s not what I expected.”

“Me neither,” Hannibal muses.

“No polish. Raw. I thought that would repel you. And he’s hardly a social animal.”

Hannibal doesn’t miss her inference. He sniffs derisively. “He doesn’t need to be, he has other qualities.”

“What, arrogance? Withholding? Occasionally, outright rudeness?”

The words circle in Hannibal for a minute, like blood around his body. He gives Mischa a faintly raised eyebrow. “It’s outside of my power to understand why many of the standards I would judge others by are not applicable to him.”

“Oh?”

At her curious expression, a mirror of his own, he sighs.

“Will is not conventionally rude, nor conventionally polite. He mimics his surroundings. At my dinner table, he has impeccable manners. In an environment that requires viciousness, he bares teeth.”

“And when he has no influences?”

That gives him pause. He looks down and wonders what kind of creature he would be, were he not so open to picking up the echoes of the noises around him. He wonders if he might find out.

When he doesn’t reply, Mischa gamely redirects her line of questioning. She has never quite mastered his refined, stylised tone of conversation.

“You are usually far more conscious of appearances.” She holds up a pair of oil-stained jeans. “He isn’t exactly like you.”

“He is like me,” Hannibal murmurs, turning another page now, fingers of his other hand idly drawing circles on Will’s bare shoulder. “Our connection isn’t based so much on mutual interests as mutual experiences.”

“Surely his experiences are nothing like ours.”

“They have the same foundations. Loss, and madness.”

Mischa looks up at that.

“Madness, Hannibal? That of others, or your own?”

“It’s an infectious disease,” Hannibal tells her sagely, “everyone it touches catches it in some form or another.”

“You can carry it, or you can spread it,” Mischa perches on the edge of the bed. She looks at Will. “Which is it for him?”

“He spills it with every step.”

“His cup runneth over.”

“And it will never empty.”

“Where does that leave you? Following with a mop?”

Hannibal smiles at that.

“Knelt at his feet, surely. Bathing in the fall.”

“Never wasting a drop,” Mischa murmurs. “Well, you always did court chaos.”

Hannibal looks at Will again. Chaos indeed. “The only God I could ever see myself worshipping.”

“Wasn’t Chaos the black, simmering emptiness from which the first gods arose?”

“I’d say that makes him a God in his own right, wouldn’t you?”

Mischa smiles, apparently satisfied for now. She hops up, coming to lean over Hannibal’s shoulder, peering at his book.

“What are you reading?”

“ _Dante’s Inferno_.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s beautiful; I’ve read it many times.”  

Without asking, Mischa sits down on the floor by the bed to listen, leaning back against the table. She doesn’t speak Italian, so Hannibal translates to Lithuanian as he reads it to her, as he always has.

As he focuses on the narrative, he feels the divergent paths of his mind rejoin, and when Will stirs, he’s reading it to him. He feels the caress of his attention like the sweep of a soft brush. Will’s hand starts to travel down his side, stroking over his skin.

“’Like it when you read to me,” he murmurs, still half asleep.  Hannibal smiles and gathers him closer, and he sees Mischa smile too.

“Sleep, I won’t stop,” he assures him. Will hums his assent, and his fingers keep stroking to the lulling rhythm of Hannibal’s voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on [my Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my [askbox is here.](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask)


	11. Physical

Fic prompt:

**"Hey! For the prompt suggestions, how about some au doctor!hannibal and patient!will hannigram based on the text post I just reblogged... "the reason i don’t go to the doctor anymore is because i went once and the medical intern was super young and super hot so naturally i got nervous, and when he measured my heart rate he said ‘hmm it’s…faster than average’ and then he smirked. cos he knew. cos i’m not subtle. cos i’m a dumb motherfucker. anyway imagine your OTP"."**

_This is a really cute idea, thanks!_

*

Will has been screening letters and emails about his mandatory physical for weeks before he gets the fright of his life coming out of his lecture hall and finds Jack Crawford waiting with his arms folded and his eyes like lasers. He almost drops the half-dozen manila expander files of student papers he’s holding. Irritation clogs the back of his throat like smoke, once the fear has subsided.

“Jesus, Jack,” he mutters, “you shouldn’t just lurk in dark hallways like that; people will get ideas.”

“It seems we’re both doing things we shouldn’t be. I’m lurking, and you’re avoiding giving me a Doctor’s note saying you’re not going to have a heart attack at thirty-eight if I put a gun in your hand.”

“So tempting when you put it like that.” Will pushes past him down the dingy grey corridor, and Jack follows anyway.

“Why don’t you want to go for a physical, Will? Got something going on?”

“Yes, I have a terrible allergy to hoop-jumping.”

Their conversation is momentarily stalled by a group of students filtering through, all who give Will- and then Jack- equally harried looks as they cross paths. Jack waits until they’re out of earshot to continue, giving Will opportunity to hand in his badge at the desk.

“Is there any valid reason you’re procrastinating on this? Should I be worried?”

“No, I just don’t like doctors.”

“Is there anyone you do like?”

“Not many humans, I can tell you that.” He shoulders through a door at the end of the corridor, hitching his armful up more securely. Jack follows him through the foyer, opening the final door for him and letting him out into the lush autumn light. Everything is banked by yellow shards of sunshine, the campus leaves ablaze with colour. Will looks around, taking a deep breath. “Thanks,” he says to Jack, over his shoulder.

“No problem. Now, please go and book an appointment with one of our approved physicians. You can’t save lives if we find out you’ve developed asthma since your last medical.”

Will opens his car door and starts to haul files into the passenger seat. “Again, not much of an incentive.”

“Will.” Jack stops playing along, abruptly as he ever does. “Make an appointment. That’s an order.”

Will sighs. “Yes sir.” He gets in his car and slams the door, Jack watching him as he fastens his belt, starts his engine and pulls away. He sighs at the shrinking reflection of him in his rear-view, a dark shadow under periwinkle infinity, and then uses hands free to call HR and schedule his physical.

*

The surgery waiting room is as nondescript as any other Will has seen, with cream walls, a toy corner, and marble effect lino on the floor. He sits in an uncomfortable chair and watches the screen and waits for his name to flash up. He’s trying, albeit distantly, to work out why this physical feels like being told to clean his room by his father as a kid.

The screen flashes his name, and Will gets up, leaving his issues unexamined in the waiting room: that’s for a doctor of a different kind. Down the hall, there’s a door open, the doctor waiting at it formally dressed and smiling serenely. Will is almost too distracted by his stylish checked suit to notice his face at first.

“Mister Graham?” He reaches to shake his hand. “Welcome, I’m Doctor Lecter. Come on in.”

Finally looking at him, Will finds himself unable to speak for a long moment, traipsing into the small examination room and hanging his jacket up where the Doctor gestures.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” he manages, eventually, “I appreciate you fitting me in.”

“It’s not a problem,” Doctor Lecter says amiably, pulling Will out a chair, “have a seat, if you will.”

He does, ears starting to burn a bit as he takes in the Doctor’s easy repose, lean and tall and with an unusual but striking handsomeness. His accent purrs as he starts to ask Will standard questions for his file. It’s harder than usual to concentrate on what he’s saying.

“Oh, god,” Will realises what he’s filling in, “I should have filled that out in the waiting room, shouldn’t I?”

“It’s quite all right, the receptionist let me know she’d forgotten to give it to you. It won’t take a minute. Now- tell me about your drinking habits.”

“Well-developed, I’d say.”

The Doctor’s mouth quirks in amusement.

“How much would you say you drink on average, in a week?”

“Maybe two whiskeys a night, most nights. Not always.”

He’s not sure if that will earn him a frown, but Doctor Lecter just writes it down.

“I’m more a wine drinker myself.”

“Well, when I run out of whiskey I’ve been known to drink wine.”

“Sensible to have a backup.”

“Absolutely.”

The Doctor gives him a silken, charming smile, and Will’s mouth goes dry. “Now, Mister Graham, are you on any medications?”

The questions continue. Will feels like he did in his first French aural exam, trying to remember how to string a sentence together without sounding incomprehensible, failing miserably. Doctor Lecter kindly does not ask what the hell is wrong with him. Will couldn’t exactly say _you’re so hot I can’t concentrate_ if he did, so he just does his best, and watches Doctor Lecter’s hand move as he writes in a smooth cursive.

“All right, last few questions, and then we’ll do your exam and the nurse will come to take you for your bloodwork. Let’s just briefly cover your sexual history: Are you sexually active with women, men, both, or other, and have you had unprotected sex with a partner at any point in the last six months?”

Will is expecting it, but his breath still gets punched out of him at the Doctor’s accent wrapping around the word ‘sexually’. His ears get hot. He sees the Doctor’s gaze flicker, and he knows he looks like an imbecile.

_You analyse serial killers for a living. Get it together._

“Uhh,” he says, buying himself a moment, “not currently with anyone, no to unprotected sex and uh- both or all or- whatever, I guess.”

Doctor Lecter nods, writing it down.

“Excellent. Do you feel you’ve had any opportunities for exposure to HIV or AIDS?”

“No.”

“Do you have any children?”

“No.”

“Very well. All done, there, Mister Graham. We’ll do your physical now.”

He unpackages a sterile otoscope from one of his drawers and goes through the usual routine of checking his eyes, ears, nose and throat, all the while professionally ignoring Will’s steadily reddening face.

Finally he gestures for Will to stand up as he pulls the stethoscope from around his neck.  

“Just pull your shirt up for me, it doesn’t have to come off. We’ll have a listen to your lungs first, just to check they sound nice and clear, and then your heart.”

Will nods, turning around and hitching up his shirt, wincing a bit at the cold plate against his back.

“Sorry, it will warm up. Take a deep breath, good, now hold it, and then exhale.  One more time. Very good.” He’s warm against Will’s back where the stethoscope is not, his breath blasting gently against his shoulder. Absurdly, Will notices that he smells great, too, some subtly spiced cologne that Will recognises enough notes in to know it’s not from Macy’s.

Doctor Lecter listens intently, then turns Will back around gently by his elbow. This time, he places the stethoscope over his sternum and moves it in a cool swipe, focusing in again. Burning red, Will presses his lips together guiltily as Doctor Lecter’s brow furrows in concern. As he catches Will’s eye, though, it changes into realisation.

“A little faster than I’d expect,” he murmurs, pulling one binaural away and giving Will a slight smirk, “but it sounds perfectly healthy.”

“Well, my boss will be relieved,” Will mutters, having been quietly hoping for that heart attack Jack had predicted. He wonders if anyone has ever died of embarrassment before.

He pulls his shirt back down, and Doctor Lecter makes his notes as Will grabs his jacket.

“All right,” he prompts, “are we done?”

“Indeed we are.” Doctor Lecter smiles again, small, sharp teeth on show. “Everything looks as it should, your bloodwork will confirm it, and I’ll forward the results to you and your department.”

“Great. Again, thank you for your time.”

“My pleasure. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you are in need of any further assistance.” He stands to shake Will’s hand again, this time clasping it between both of his gently before letting go to open the door. As Will gathers himself, he realises they’re still watching one another, Doctor Lecter’s hand still perched on the handle. He seems to be the one loitering, now, for all Will’s flustered idiocy. The memory of Doctor Lecter’s hands squeezing his still throbs gently on his skin, propelling him, and he stutters to life again.

“Hey, um,” Will bites his lip, trying to make it sound more _hey, one more thing_ and less _I smelled you that whole time_ , “do…  do you…”

“Have a policy against dating people I meet in my exam room?”

“Yes.”

“No, I do not.”

“Well- that’s a good start.”

“It is, isn’t it?” The Doctor’s smile grows. Will looks at his shoes to avoid combusting altogether at the sight of it.

“Then… uh, would you…”

“Like to go for a drink?”

“Yes,” Will feels his face burning again, “yes, would you? Somewhere they sell- y’know, whiskey and wine.”

“I’ve heard of these places called bars. They sell all sorts.”

“Is it anything like an open-all-hours liquor store?”

“There are similarities, I’m told.”

Will feels himself grinning, almost compulsively. “You really want to go for a drink?”

“I very much do, yes.” He hands Will a card from his breast pocket, smooth as anything. Will’s smile makes his face hurt a little bit.

“All right. I’ll uh.”

“Call me?”

“Yes,” Will nods.  He steps out into the corridor when Doctor Lecter opens it for him, walking into a waiting nurse, who seems as amused by his stuttering as he did.

“I look forward to hearing from you, Mister Graham,” Doctor Lecter says, politely now. Will notices his thumb rubbing against his own fingers, like it tingles.

“I- me too.” He puts the card in his pocket, walking backward a few steps to keep watching him. When the door closes over, he rights himself, and follows after the nurse. He reminds himself, as his thumb smooths against the edge of the Doctor’s card in his pocket, to thank Jack later.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my [askbox is here.](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask)


	12. Closer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: claustrophobic situations, graphic imagery of death.

For the ask: 

**"Will and Hannibal being straight jacketed together bc reasons and actually kinda loving it (nonsexual please) like Will expected to feel trapped but he just feels safe, bond to Hannibal like they're one being and Hannibal is like ah yes this is the appropriate amount of close to be to my murder muffin"**

_I really enjoyed writing this, thanks!_

*

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” Will says, as Hannibal sets his bags on the kitchen counter and relieves himself of his coat and shoes. Even though he’s smiling when he says it, there’s a little vein of anxiety in his tone that Hannibal scents like smoke, raising his chin to it and meeting Will’s gaze. In the balmy evening with the wind from the open windows gently disrupting his curls, he looks like a holy thing, pale eyes made amber by the drowning sun.

 “I apologise, I simply lost track of the time.” Hannibal reaches out, one warm hand coming to the small of Will’s back. Neither of them acknowledge the growing ferocity of their co-dependency: the way Will’s audible questions of _How long will you be?_ and _What’s the address if I need you?_ are becoming almost as common as Hannibal’s own measuring silences at announcements of errands needing to be run, wood to be cut behind the house.

Will leans into the touch, the tops of his ears just blushing pink. Hannibal noses at the warm curve, inhaling the scent of his fear, a sharp, hot perfume.

“You must never allow yourself to believe I would abandon you, Will,” he murmurs, “not after everything.”

Everything. The way he’d brought them gasping and heaving to the water’s edge as if he had stolen them passage back across the River Styx to the world of the living. Will knows he won’t let this vanish now.

With a heavy sigh, he lets himself curl into Hannibal’s chest, accepting his arms around him. Hannibal has always been physically affectionate, but it takes Will a particular level of vulnerability to allow himself the closeness. Hannibal cherishes it, pressing his nose into his curls, inhaling the rising warmth of his mind. He doesn’t notice immediately when Will’s hands tighten in his back, and then loosen, until he feels the prick of the dart in his own shoulder. On instinct, his hands tighten too.

            *

They wake in unimpregnable dark. Will has a brief, startling moment of fear that he’s blind, but as he lies and listens and frantically looks, the faintest of shadows shift before his eyes. He can’t make out what he’s seeing, but he feels bound, tightly encased in fabric and warmth. There’s something solid against his back, not stone but possibly wood. Panic seizes him and he shifts, feeling whatever holds him straining against his shoulders, spiking a sharper pain in the never ending ache of the right. He wriggles again, kicking down against the ends of the prison, and breath against his cheek stalls him.

“Will.” Against his chest, Hannibal, their hands slotted together within the confines of whatever holds them. Will searches with his bound hands, and Hannibal’s fingers entwine slowly with his own. Relief tangibly washes over them both.

“Did you see-?”

“No, did you?”

“Saw a rifle scope, must have been after it hit me.”

“All right.” Hannibal shifts too, experimental. His short, laboured breaths slow again when he, like Will, deduces immediate escape unlikely. “A straitjacket.”

“Yeah. I remember the feeling.”

“Bound together in one. And our hands trapped between our bodies. Clever, I suppose.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to leave a good Amazon review for this guy.”

“Will.”

He goes quiet. They both do, just listening for a long time, breathing.

“I can’t hear anything,” Will says.

“Me neither. I don’t think we’ve been buried, though perhaps we’re in a basement.  I can smell damp. Woodrot. No earth.” He says it as a comfort to himself as well as Will, gently running his thumb against the back of his knuckles.

“Think it’s too small to be a coffin?”

“Unless it’s custom built, I’d hazard a trunk, or an equipment dolly.”

“Are we going to suffocate?”

Hannibal raises his chin, inhaling a bit.

“I think there might be enough structural weakness to support decent enough airflow. It might get warm.”

Will nods at that. He can handle warm. He’s not sure he can handle endless, lingering darkness, but Hannibal’s voice has already lit a candle in him.

“Will, are you still with me?”

“I’m here.”

Hannibal isn’t especially keen on the claustrophobic, cloying blackness pressing in on them either. He squeezes Will’s hand, relieved when he squeezes back. They pass the pulse back and forth for a long time in the dark, moving from random squeezes to purposeful ones, long and then short, long again. Will’s breath gutters like a flame when he realises it’s Morse code. They don’t have to be silent, but it feels safer, talking like this, listening in the dark for any movement above or below.

_You’re OK._

_We’re OK._

_We will find a way out._

_I love you._

Despite the growing ache in his body from being curled on the floor of whatever receptacle they’re in, Will could feel worse. He expected panic- expected goddamn hysteria by now, but Hannibal is calm and still against him, nosing occasionally at his ear like Winston would in the wake of a nightmare. Having picked up the habit, Will scents Hannibal deeply, smiling when Hannibal reciprocates the gesture. With his eyes closed, Will can feel the matching thud of their pulses in his chest as if they’ve atrophied together at the sternum, twin hearts side by side, the two of them a grotesque, beautiful thing. It seems only fitting.

“If we die like this…” Will starts, hesitantly, but trails off.

“It would not be such a bad way to go,” Hannibal agrees. “I only wish I could put my arms around you.”

Will sighs, eyes slipping shut.

“Me too.”

“We won’t die,” Hannibal says, entirely confident, “I have too much living left to do, and I doubt whoever left us here will be able to resist coming back to check.”

“I hope you’re right.” He probably is.

Hannibal sighs. He feels Will shift again minutely. “Your shoulder?”

“Yeah, I’m lay on it.”

“Let’s turn.”

With a little coordination, they manage it. Their legs aren’t bound, which is surprising, and Will slides on top of Hannibal with a breath of relief. Even though it still aches like hell, it’s a vast improvement.

“Will- stay like this for a moment. I might be able to try kicking the lid off.”

“Okay- can you just- give me a minute?”

That gives Hannibal pause- not necessarily alarmed, but definitely surprised. Will tucks his face against his neck and his cheeks feel hot.

“Freeing, to be bound this close together against our will,” he surmises, softly, “when it’s a choice, it can be wrong. There’s a moral high ground to being straitjacketed together: no guilt in being a victim.”

“Can we not turn this into a therapy session?” Will mutters against his neck. “You saying it just tells me you thought it, too.”

“I certainly did. Were it practical, this would be a very satisfactory way to live.”

“Certainly adds a new meaning to intimacy. Especially if we’re trapped in here for much longer and one of us has to pee.”

Hannibal sighs. He’d been skirting the more problematic practical hurdles this situation put them in out of optimism.

“We’ll get out of here before then.”

“Yeah,” Will says. Between them, there’s a good chance they will.

For now, they just lie, listening to one another’s breaths, savouring the opportunity to be trapped this way. With the ache in his shoulder receding, Will can focus wholly on Hannibal’s body; his warm, reassuring solidity, the way his bones support Will’s too. If they do die, he thinks, parts of him will fall inside Hannibal, and whoever finds them – if enough time has passed – will have to try to tell whose vertebrae were whose. Maybe it will be decades, centuries, and as their clasped hands loosen, their metacarpals will rattle around in Hannibal’s ribcage like treasure in a chest.

Beneath him, Hannibal inhales the scent of his content and lets it lull him, his mind too travelling down a lazy stream of aimless fantasy, all of it focused around Will. For the most part, his thoughts are almost identical. He can think of nothing more perfect, the two of them bound by the invisible hands of fate, left with nothing but their love, the burning flame that had lit between them as soon as Will had heard Hannibal’s voice in the dark, now glowing between the cavity of their bodies like a haunting candelabra.

They’ll escape, soon. But not yet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are several short ficlets created in response to prompts left over on my [Hannibal Tumblr](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/). They're all just for fun and not too serious. If you want, you can leave me a prompt too, my askbox is [here](https://gleamingandwholeanddeadly.tumblr.com/ask).


End file.
